SeB

Hence why I'd like Roberto Martinez, 6 enjoyable months and let's move on

1 month, 3 month, 6 months loans are pointless. But I think a season long loan offers a little more options for both parts

The issue is always the same, you can't play more than a couple of youngster if you want to challenge for titles. Just look at where comes from the U21 National Teams players all over Europe: mid table clubs, often 2nd division. Ones who plays in big clubs earn their call ups on their reputation, not weekly game time @, Kakuta and Josh's loans were to contextualize considering both were loaned to a midtable club who could afford 4 or 5 players in his position back then (Gera, Dempsey, A Johnson, Dembélé) and the other was expected to play where Sigurdsson was in the form of his life. But basically that just proves they weren't regarded by Premier League managers to start games in mid-table. And some still expect them to be 3rd choice at Chelsea in their respective positions

McEachran and Chalobah aren't ready, I mean being a virtual starter in Championship at 18 is not enough. And no need to burn them out so early in their careers by giving a rotation role they're not able to afford. Kakuta shows good things at Vitesse it seems but he doesn't broadly offers more than Marin. KdB is on loan at Bremen, does good things but not ready yet to earn his place on the wings, let alone at CM (even if I'm convinced he'll do in the future). Our team is massively inexperienced, that's the reasons of our recent flaws

BIBS BALLS and CONES

You seem to act as if I told I wanted him to replace Lampard right now... I said he was a decent squad player for us due to his versatility and the fact he offers an interesting palette, as much defensively than attacking. He's a brilliant crosser, can play through space. He's a "central winger", he makes runs in the channels. I'm not sure the whole forum would laugh to have Morrison right now considering our options after Mikel, Ramires and Lampard are... errr... a versatile center back and... errrr nobody else

I take the job but I want Ryan as my iPad wanker just beside me. I like you so you can be my BBC

Look at Fletcher's figures, not that bad...

I was about to put @Cynegeticus tweets but @James already did it. Go have a look to his timeline, the Oscar deal came through him to the main English medias (who willingly twisted 25m€ to £25m)

Mata improved a lot his movement off the ball, he makes more and more late runs to score like Lampard always used to. But Lampard is a concept player: hard working player with clever off the ball when pushing forward. Creative as well. There's no need to search the new Lampard as long as that's your players that dictates you the system to use and not the opposite

He played as a defensive midfielder until 16 or 17, he decided to do trials as a striker after several unsuccessful ones as a DM.

Anichebe is a kind of Benteke/Heskey: wins most of his aerial challenges but can't direct it, that's often given back to the opposition

Today is a potential massive benchmark as Osman may be playing in the hole for Everton... I don't know if Moyes will stick again with Anichebe upfront though (so 4-4-2).

I watched it two days ago in full HD, the blues still won the game. I feared the red team could turn the game his way but hopefully it wasn't the case.

I'm fed up with Torres constantly offside, triggering his runs too late, fouling defenders when he pressurizes them... Jelavic would be a massive upgrade to that. OH WAIT

I think Mikel and Ramires are good enough to start at Chelsea. The whole "soul" thing is overrated. I mean you don't win football games with enthusiasm & aggressiveness, let alone on a full season. The most pragmatic team will most of the time eventually win it. The key is organisation, shape... Enthusiasm, team spirit etc is what allow your patterns and your players to gel together. But you can't do without organisation. I watched 114 Premier League games last season, I play football myself and I coach youths, is that enough for your "eye test" ? Just asking. About Fellaini, I made my point in the article: what's the point to recover the ball if you can't use it (because I think his passing is not good enough) ? There's a scheme about the different phasis of a football game, a sort of circle with the different options starting from "losing the ball" Losing the ball => teams recovers his shape => ball is recovered => ball is retained => attacking penetration => finishing ..^.................................................................................................................V......................................................................... ..|..................................................................................................................| ..|_________________________________________________________________| I do feel that Fellaini can win the ball but can't contribute to retain it, I don't say that based on figures, I say that based on the games I saw. Feel free to think he's the best passer in Premier League Why when there's a chart with figures, people are forced to throw out the same crap about "stats don't make the whole football blabla...". I don't mention the charts in the article, that's not: chart 1: Mikel is better than Fellaini. Chart two: Mikel is better than Fellaini, Chart 3 blabla so conclusion Mikel is better

Don't get me wrong, I don't disagree with the fact we need impact and a ball winner against certain oppositions. My point here is that I think Fellaini isn't the player we would need because he's not able to make that good pass forward after recovering the ball. (No point to compare him to Fabrice Muamba but you surely got my point ?) That's a bit similar to Mousa Dembele and Ramires actually, both are box to box, can get past the first opponent... But Dembele's last services are poor, wasteful, predictable, disappointing whereas Ramires has proved numerous times how good he is at it. Chelsea don't only need ability, we need the very best in each position like in the past. I'm not broadly against signing Fellaini for a broken price to be a squad player. But we all know it won't happen like that, he'll end up at Anzhi where he'll run the show. Feel free to disagree, discuss, debate (that's also the point of the article, I express my view so I can discuss about it)... I do feel he's not good enough to be a starter at Chelsea

To be fair I don't really understand why you're speaking about the figures as that's just the illustrations, I don't recall that very much in the article... not at all actually. My main point is the middle of the article, stuff about the passing game and the pressing/positioning/roles depending of the situations. It's very much theoretical, the charts are just there to illustrate the points I make, I could have not put its in but it would have been dull to read. The what you mean about the ball winner in midfield, when do you have to win the ball? When you obviously havent... Most of the time we have it. I'm happy enough with Ramires/Mikel incase we have to recover it, Ramires has the sheer aggressivity and Mikel the positional sense to intercept and block the main passing lines. I don't see Fellaini helping for that, as I say in my article I think both him & Ramires share the same aggressiveness. But Ramires can press high up and also cut in the back of the full back (something I could have add actually, the latter thing)

Do I need to recall the list of his tactical flaws since he's at Chelsea? His club world cup final as the cherry on the cake? I'm even fascinated your profile says you're 17, you keyboard warrior

I did the charts with powerpoint, that's really not hard at all. The longest thing is collecting the datas and get the figures actually. Proportionally, writing isn't that long. Coud you do something on Falcao/Cavani, which would be the better, for which system etc... ?

@Shogun, @Atholy, What's your opinion? Long biaised crap article?

Two years ago he said some rubbish about Deschamps and the Chelsea job. But he said (when he wasn't in conflict with Lille's Frank Arnesen which led him to leave the club earlier this month, long and unfunny story) that he could look elsewhere if he was offered the 2nd jersey at Chelsea with his friends Cech and Lollichon http://www.francefootball.fr/#!/news/2011/02/11/160316_landreau-si-deschamps-prend-chelsea.html

Libre depuis la rupture de son contrat à l’amiable avec Lille le 6 décembre, Mickaël Landreau décidera samedi ou dimanche dans quel club il souhaite poursuivre sa carrière. Selon nos informations, le gardien intéresse plusieurs clubs de L1. Nancy, Bastia et Evian-Thonon-Gaillard se sont renseignés directement ou indirectement sur son cas. Mais l’international français, qui souhaite battre le record du nombre de matches joués en Ligue 1, détenu par Jean-Luc Ettori (602), pourrait quitter la France et rejoindre Chelsea. le club anglais pourrait l’accueillir dans un rôle de doublure de Petr Cech. http://www.lequipe.fr/Football/Actualites/Landreau-va-choisir/337393 Free agent since he found an agreement to break his contract with Lille on December the 6th, Mickael Landreau will decide Saturday or Sunday which club he'll chose to pursue his career. According to our sources, the goalkeeper has triggered interest from Nancy, Bastia and Evian Thonon Gaillard who contacted him. The French GK who wants to beat Ettori's record in the top flight (602 games, Landreau has 568) may join Chelsea as a 2nd choice to Petr Cech. He's a top goalkeeper. He's been Scott Carsoned with a couple of howlers in his career but that's still a few considering he plays every game for 12 years or so. And physically he's something in between Van Persie's hair and Simon Mignolet's nose http://www.lfp.fr/joueur/landreau-mickael

On my blog as well if you want to read it two times http://theweststandobserver.wordpress.com/2012/12/19/would-fellaini-fit-at-chelsea/

I know that feeling buddy, I had the same sensation on Michael Cox's stuff on Benitez's first game in charge. For once that I decided to write something on a game everybody did the same on it, some raised points I wanted to make etc... I didn't get the start of the message, precisely I chosed only to pick figures from his games played in midfield last season, he played 30 games as central midfield. If he's ever going to sign at Chelsea he'd be used primarly there and not as central something at the heart of the play. You didn't got me either on the possession thing: I don't care about the difference between how the team can and do play possession football (until a certain extent, basically to dominate the ball), I wanted to highlight the fact that Fellaini would struggle at Chelsea on that passing aspect. Passing game is a collective approach, based on a pattern of play. The players you play in that system can be outstanding passers restricted in a given role (Mikel) or the opposite, average passers with a lot of freedom (what I think Fellaini is). I don't say Fellaini is a bad passer because he plays with donkeys who can't control a ball, I judge him on his individual technique to pass the ball, regardless if the receiver does something of the ball. Same stuff that the assist provider/striker (or goalkeeper/striker for long balls), you obviously needs two players. The assister can create a clear cut chance that the striker won't convert, the provider will still be credited of that ability to create clear cut chances... Am I clearer? Mikel lacks mobility, that's something we can observe and that most of the people overrating Mikel as fuck are fairly open to discuss. Still we have to take into consideration that his defensive game is based a lot on zonal instructions, no point to recall how a clueless dog à la Tioté is useless and create massive gaps. What do you mean by workrate? For me at Chelsea that's not just about wandering all game long on the pitch. Mikel has good defensive figures and is the player who plays the most passes every game (stop pretending that's useless or easy if he can do that 70 times a game) WhoScored did some stuff about that. Obviously that's to put in relation with the time in possession, that's unsurprising to see Noble, Leigertwood or Mulumbu there as their teams are 16th, 20th and 17th on the possession table (chase the ball almost 60% of the time) http://www.whoscored.com/Blog/nfjguoozpumzj-wg7xluca/Show/Player-Focus-Premier-Possession-Winners Mikel is our best leader on the pitch at the moment. Not saying for all there's not better leaders (because obviously there is), it rather shows where we are as a team when Lampard, Terry aren't there. He's incredibly consistent (when people will understand that wether he's targeted or not that makes most of his game, i.e Arteta wasn't in bad form against us, he had Oscar chasing him all game). What I see is a player constantly moaning, shouting and arguing with referees on the pitch. I don't want to discuss if that's good or bad, the fact is there and that's not Cahill, Luiz, Cech, Ramires, Mata or Torres that can argue properly with the referee. There's many ways to be a leader, at the moment I obviously agree with the fact that he could be an even better leader. But right now, at the moment, with the starting lineup he's the leader on the pitch ; he's the playmaker and the most vocal player.